Remembering Uncle Louis

"One lives in the hope of becoming a memory."

-- Antonio Porchia

My Great Uncle Louis Klein (far left) with some of his military brothers in Salach, Germany (1945)

When Memorial Day rolls around, I always feel like such a lame-ass. 

Don't hate me for saying this or think I'm unpatriotic, but I just can't get into it.

Yesterday I tried. 

Sam drove me to a couple of cemeteries and I took a few pictures of headstones with flags on them -- the eternal resting places of men I don't know, with unfamiliar names I never heard of. There was a little plot of grave markers for soldiers who fought in the "Sp. Am. War." I quipped that it must have been a war over disgusting canned meat. Sam topped me by saying "Or really annoying email." 

I felt a little disrespectful joking in a place at a time on a day about events that demand reverence. But I also thought it was funny.

I don't come from much of a military family. And I think that's a big part of my problem. I just don't have a personal connection to war -- no tragic stories of loss or tales of heroism -- and whether you agree with me or not, I think that makes a big difference in how a person feels about patriotic holidays. 

The only family member of mine who I know of who served in the armed forces was my grandma's brother, Louis Klein. 

Louis didn't die in the war. He lived to a ripe old age in house full of tchotchkes in Florida with his wife, Elizabeth. Well, he seemed old to me, anyway, because I was just a little kid the very few times I met him.

Like all the Klein boys, Louis was tall and whip thin. Good looking, but in a geeky way.

All I really remember about Uncle Louis was riding in the car with him in Florida, with him  reading aloud every single sign and billboard we drove past. No shit. He read every single one, followed by "Yeh. Yeh." My sister and I thought it was hilarious. I thought my grandma was going to lose her ever-loving shit.

Louis Klein at the Eiffel Tower

A few years ago after cleaning out some of my grandma's things, my mother gave me a photo album that Louis kept during World War II. There are pictures of him in Paris at the Eiffel Tower, in Salach, Germany with some of his company-mates, looking dapper in his uniform on a mountain overlook in Switzerland with some guy named "Smitty".

The photos are tiny 3x2-inch black and whites with deckled edges.

It's a sparse album. There are blank spaces where many of the photos used to be. I don't know who removed them. But in almost all of the remaining pictures -- the ones with Uncle Louis in them and otherwise -- everybody looks like they're having a grand old time.

I don't know what rank Louis held, or what branch of the military he served in (I'm guessing Army.) I can't tell much of anything from the pictures, and there's nobody left in my family who can tell me. 

On the album's inside cover he wrote "Property of Louis R. Klein, A.S.N. 35751735, Co. B. 1264 Engr. C. Bn." It may as well be hieroglyphics.

Yesterday while the burgers and dogs were on the grill I got the album out.

I looked at the pictures, I read the captions, written with a fountain pen in Louis' own elegant handwriting.

And I felt something.

Not patriotism.

Not loss. 

Not pride.

What I felt was more like a little twinge of a wish that instead of laughing at Louis' idiosyncrasies and Elizabeth's unusually flabby arms, I'd had the presence of mind and respect to sit and listen when Louis told stories about his life, about his time in the war. I'm sure he told stories. The man talked all the time. 

I felt the feeling that I often feel now, as I get older, that I had the chance to go back and know some of the family that I've lost, to ask their younger selves the questions that didn't occur to me as a child. I wish my 46 year old self could sit down with Louis over a cup of coffee and a slice of Elizabeth's pie and just chat a while.

Memorial Day is about remembering those who died in service to our country, as well as those who died after serving our country.

And yesterday, I remembered what I could about Uncle Louis. I looked at his photographs, at his handsome, geeky face, and wondered about things I'll never ever know, but sincerely wish I could.

Maybe I'm not as unpatriotic as I thought.

Maybe I got it at least a little bit right after all.

Yeh. Yeh.